page_title: Mark Hanna
section_title: Nominating McKinley
hierarchical_section_title: Mark Hanna / Campaign of 1896 / Nominating McKinley
caption_attribution_description: 1896 image of Mark Hanna
context_page_description: Marcus Alonzo Hanna was an American businessman and Republican politician, who served as a United States Senator from Ohio as well as chairman of the Republican National Committee. A friend and political ally of President William McKinley, Hanna used his wealth and business skills to successfully manage McKinley's presidential campaigns in 1896 and 1900.
  Hanna was born in New Lisbon, Ohio, in 1837. His family moved to the growing city of Cleveland in his teenage years, where he attended high school with John D. Rockefeller. He was expelled from college, and entered the family mercantile business. He served briefly during the American Civil War and married Charlotte Rhodes; her father, Daniel Rhodes, took Hanna into his business after the war. Hanna was soon a partner in the firm, which grew to have interests in many areas, especially coal and iron. He was a millionaire by his 40th birthday, and turned his attention to politics.
  Despite Hanna's efforts on his behalf, Ohio Senator John Sherman failed to gain the Republican nomination for president in 1884 and 1888. With Sherman becoming too old to be considered a contender, Hanna worked to elect McKinley.
context_section_description: After leaving business, Hanna rented a house in Thomasville, Georgia, expressing a dislike for northern winters.  He was joined there by the McKinleys in 1895, even before the governor left office, and also in the winter of 1896.  The location was a plausibly nonpolitical vacation spot for McKinley and also permitted him to meet many southern Republicans, including blacks.  Although southern Republicans rarely had local electoral success, they elected a substantial number of delegates to the national convention.
  During 1895, Hanna journeyed east to meet with political bosses such as Senators Matthew Quay of Pennsylvania and Thomas Platt of New York. When Hanna returned to Canton, he informed McKinley that the bosses would guarantee his nomination in exchange for control of local patronage.  McKinley was unwilling to make such a deal, and Hanna duly undertook to gain the former governor's nomination without machine support.
  Historian R. Hal Williams summarized the relationship between McKinley and Hanna:
  McKinley and Hanna made an effective team.  The Major commanded, decided general strategies, selected issues and programs.  He stressed ideals ... Hanna organized, built coalitions, performed the rougher work for which McKinley had neither taste nor energy. Importantly, they shared a Hamiltonian faith in the virtue of industrialism, central authority, and expansive capitalism. That faith, triumphant in the 1896 presidential election, became one of the reasons for the vital importance of that election.
  Through the months leading up to the Republican convention in June in St. Louis, Hanna built his organization, paying for expenses, and applying the techniques of business to politics.  Hanna met with many politicians at his Cleveland home.  He paid for thousands of copies of McKinley's speeches to be printed and shipped quantities of McKinley posters, badges, and buttons across the nation.  New Hampshire Senator William E. Chandler commented, "If Mr. Hanna has covered every district in the United States, in the same manner, he did those in Alabama, McKinley will be nominated."
  McKinley's most formidable rival for the nomination was former president Harrison, but in February 1896, Harrison declared he would not run for president a third time.  The eastern bosses were hostile to McKinley for failing to agree to the offer they had made to Hanna, and they decided to seek support for local favorite son candidates, believing that McKinley could be forced to bargain for support at the convention if he was denied a majority.  The bosses supported candidates such as Speaker Reed, Senator Quay and former vice president Levi P. Morton of New York.  Hanna spent much money and effort to undercut Reed in his native New England, and on "McKinley Clubs" in Pennsylvania to force Quay to spend time and money shoring up his base.
  A key to defeating the bosses' "favorite son" strategy was Illinois.  A young Chicago businessman and McKinley supporter, Charles Dawes (who would thirty years later be vice president under Coolidge) worked at Illinois district and state conventions to elect delegates pledged to McKinley.  Dawes and Hanna worked closely together, with the latter relying on the young entrepreneur to secure support from his connections in the Chicago business community.  Despite the opposition of Illinois' Republican political machine, Dawes and Hanna were able to secure all but a few of Illinois' delegates for McKinley, giving the former Ohio governor a strong advantage going into the convention.  According to Williams, "As early as March 1896, the bandwagon had become a steamroller."
  As the convention approached, journalists awoke to the fact that McKinley would, most likely, be the Republican nominee.  Those newspapers that were Democratic in their outlook, including publisher William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, sent reporters to Canton to dig up dirt on McKinley.  The candidate had a sterling reputation for personal and political honesty, and reporters found that even McKinley's few personal enemies spoke well of him. McKin
caption: A photograph taken of Mark Hanna after his election as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
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